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Women religious virtuosae from the middle ages: a case pattern and analytic model of types
Sociology of Religion, Spring, 2002 by Barbara R. Walters
Most interesting, in light of Weber's larger project linking inner-worldly asceticism to the Protestant ethos (1958), material prosperity for the women generally preceded their ascetic renunciations (cf. Roisin 1947). The beguines and tertiaries, and to some extent the newer Cistercian nuns, were drawn from rising social strata -- new groups that may have been anxious about their wealth and status. Theirs was a spirit of penitence and renunciation of wealth (Bynum 1982:183; Grundmann 1955). Most were drawn from towns and the lower nobility, often rebelling against the material and other excesses of the preceding generation through religious asceticism.
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From the five exemplars, the hazardous nature of existence during the thirteenth century is obvious. In the words of Hobbes (1930: 253), life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The intensity of religious life bears testimony by way of contrast to the brutality of the everyday world. Moreover, the double-edged sword of power via secular versus church authority is made manifest in the contrast of outcomes between the five women. Each walked a fine line between the threat of inquisitional prosecution for heresy and prosecution by secular authorities in land or other disputes. All five exemplars in fact suffered harsh treatment from secular groups - often via the increasing power of the Patrician strata and their status wars with established nobility. Only Margaret Porette and Hadewijch suffered from both secular prosecution and official prosecution by the ecclesia and only Margaret was completely damned by an ecclesiastic committee whose members may have wept at the reading of her final sentence.
Margaret Porette's case corroborates Leff's (1967) thesis regarding heresy. Groups defined as heretical shared three basic characteristics: (1) a Church ban on their beliefs, (2) persistence in opposition to the Church, and (3) use of Biblical or evangelical virtues to challenge the hierocratic authority. A major difference between Porette and Hadewijch was that the latter repented for her audacity - Porette did not (Bynum 1991: 62). And Porette's case suggests other important directions for research on virtuosae. Her religious vision approximated to the nascent Protestant idea of God as totally "other." Her union with God - a God who was entirely transcendent and radically other from this world - spoke to her on His schedule, not subject to the orderly life of prayer that defined the life of regulars. Her religious orientation is not at all surprising given the reality of her existential circumstances. In sociological terms, her case suggests a positive and unilinear relationship between the negative tenor of existence on earth and the degree of transcendent otherness ascribed to God.
Regular religious life offered peace and order, existential items in sharp contrast to the world for those who chose it. However, this choice was not open to everyone. Admission to a cloister required a dowry or implicit gift exchange within a family tradition. With the rising urban strata and increasing number of unmarried women, the demand for entry into the religious life outstripped the number of available places in recognized orders and even the capacity for incorporation of new foundations. The increase in private devotion among women must be viewed as the natural outcome of these demographic and sociological trends. It is virtually tautological that women in private devotional groups and women in non-cloistered orders more frequently suffered suspicion of heresy for religious vocation from both religious and secular authorities than Benedictine or Augustinian nuns.
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